Projects
Rapid Response Fire Project 2002
Overview
Rapid Response Fire Behavior Research & Real-time Monitoring
Current wildland fire suppression, fuel treatment programs, and
fire planning efforts require quantitative information on how fuel
treatments and other past land-use activities influence fire behavior.
The best means to obtain this information is through direct measurement
of fuel conditions and fire behavior as fire passes through areas
of the landscape with different treatment histories and fuel configurations.
Currently, managers rely upon fuel and fire behavior modeling or
post-hoc fire research (Omi 1999) to gain this type of information.
- Direct observation and measurement of fire behavior as it passes
through a fuel treatment areas is the most direct way to evaluate
the effectiveness of fuel treatments on changing fire behavior
or effects.
- Concordant measurement of fuel conditions before the fire and
fire behavior during the fire provide a direct means of evaluating
which fuel metrics best relate to wildland fire behavior, allowing
refinement of our ability to inventory, map, and monitor fuels
in ways meaningful to fire behavior predictions.
- We have formed a rapid response and research team to measure
fuel conditions pre- and post-fire, and fire behavior during wildland
fire in areas with various fuel treatments and other past land-use
management activities.
- This is jointly funded by the USDA FS Pacific Southwest Region
Fire and Aviation Management and the Joint Fire Science Program.
- We will only send our team to fires where the IC of the IMT
has approved. Please contact Jo Ann Fites, leader, if you
are interested or have questions. 530-478-6151.
- We have worked with the California Team 1 Type I IMT on several
wildfires to evaluate the feasibility and plan logistics to ensure
safe and unobtrusive interface with IMT’s.
Objectives
- Directly measure the effects of fuel treatments at the site
and landscape scales on fire behavior during wildfires.
- Compare effects of different types and degrees (intensity and
landscape extent) of fuel treatments or other past land-use activities
(such as timber harvest) on fire behavior at the site and landscape
scales.
- Improve our understanding and modeling of the relationships
between measurements of crown fuels and fire behavior.
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